The Year

The four lady seasons

Spring is like a virgin
clad in purity and whiteness
with her blonde hair loose
all shining in the sunlight
in free length of generosity
just waiting to embrace you
and to cover you in love;

while summer is a bride
of sumptuousness and joy
with garlands in her hair
enjoying feasting all the time
with whirling banquets non-stop
without any end or limit
to her splendid health and happiness.

When autumn comes she is a mother
with a warm and tender bosom
prone to some consideration
and an endless care
of tending to the harvest
for a future without end
of life stability and continuity.

They say winter is a step-mother
of some cold and cruel harshness,
sometimes quite inhuman in her chill,
but she is the most beautiful of all,
the purest and most irresistible
in cold detachment but the lovelier
for her challenge and her unattainability;
and it is by her trial and severity
that our spring virgin can be born again.